As federal workers race to transform the National Mall for President Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 celebrations, Washington, D.C. locals and visitors are growing frustrated with the constant construction and disruptions to daily life.
“That’s been really annoying and it just looks ugly,” said 20-year-old Tristan Monahan, a student at George Washington University, speaking with The Washington Post for its report published on Wednesday.
“I go on a walk every day and usually I come down from Foggy Bottom and I walk around that path by the Washington Monument. That’s closed now, so I have to just kind of walk on the streets and crowded sidewalks.”
Freedom 250 is a Trump-linked group organizing the Great American State Fair, a multi-day festival that triggered a mass exodus of performers after they learned of its ties to the president. Trump has since floated himself as a suitable replacement for the performing artists.
In the lead up to the festivities, however, visitors say their trip to the nation’s capital had been soured by the president’s “costly and disruptive facelift” that had transformed the National Mall into a “maze of tall black fencing, creating dead ends and frustration,” the Post reported.
“There’s a few things that we’re kind of like, ‘Son of a gun,’ because we went over to the White House to take a picture, but of course as close as you’re going to get is here,” said Coddy Barker, who traveled to D.C. to celebrate his son’s high school graduation, speaking with the Post. “I get it, everything that transpired with the UFC thing and the next two weeks, but it’s like, ugh.”